CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Dementor's Deal

Weeks flew by, and Attuoria's lessons with Voldemort were getting redundant. Attuoria mastered everything on the first try except for two things: Apparating and unsupported flight. Although apparition only took Attuoria a week, unsupported flight took a good two weeks.

"Voldemort," Attuoria piped up. "Remember when we made the deal, I wanted you to teach me the ways of humans. So far, we've only worked on magic. Is there anything about humans that you can teach me?"

Voldemort seemed to contemplate his answer before walking away from the window. He sat across from her at the dining table, his snake, Nagini, curling up next to him.

"I am not completely human, either." Voldemort said after a few seconds of silence. "I was, back in those days when people still knew me as Tom Riddle." He spat out that name in apathy. "Humans are weak. Vulnerable. Mortal. I have a better life ahead of me, I have followers, I have a goal. I can't accomplish what I want to do if mortality gets to me first. Hence I found a way to preserve my soul even if my physical body was gone, and that was through horcruxes."

"I read about those." Attuoria interrupted. "You split your soul into multiple pieces and confide them in objects so that even if one is destroyed, part of your soul is still preserved in the other. It's a pretty smart way to escape death, because death needs the soul as a whole."

"Precisely. I split my soul into six pieces. Well, seven now. My current body is only a lich. Now, the humans that you seek to understand, I would assume you mean commonplace muggles, as they take up the majority of our mortal realm. I know nothing about them. I am not one of them. I don't understand their ways of life and their ways of thinking. In fact, my goal is to rid the Wizarding World of those with a muggle heritage, because they simply don't understand the means of being a wizard. But since you were lucky enough to land with us, you'll learn the ways of pureblood witches and wizards. I guarantee you that."

Attuoria nodded, satisfied with his answer. All though she didn't completely agree with some things he said about muggles and muggleborns, it was still a cohesive argument.

"Now that you understand more of who I am, I would like you to accompany me on a task."

***

With the help of her new unsupported flight abilities, Voldemort and Attuoria battled their way to the North Sea against the harsh gale. Even high up in the sky, drops of saltwater pelted their bodies like bullets. At last, they landed on a rocky island that supported a large gray building. Attuoria immediately recognised it as Azkaban, the largest wizarding prison. She had read about it in many history books. Black, wraithlike creatures surrounded the air around the structure. Even without human emotions, Attuoria sensed the cold, eerie, depressive atmosphere of this island.

"Dementors." said Attuoria.

"Correct." Voldemort replied, watching as a group of the dark beings descended from the sky and approached the two of them.

The dementors had a humanoid shape, and were unbelievably tall. They glided through the air like ghosts, thin black cloaks drifting in a fashion that resembled mist. Their arrival brought a surge of aching coldness and engulfed the two in darkness. Attuoria could no longer see a thing, but she located each of the beings surrounding them with her intuition.

"What are you doing back here again?" It wasn't a voice that spoke, but Attuoria sensed the thoughts being projected. It almost reminded her of how they communicated back in the spiritual dimension.

"I've brought a Nightmare Demon from the Spiritual Dimension. I believe she may help me gain a better understanding of what you want from our alliance." Voldemort announced to the dementors in plain English. He clearly could not hear what the dementors were communicating, but the dementors understood him.

Acknowledging that these beings communicated through thought projection, Attuoria decided to do the same.

"What are you?" she asked, projecting her thoughts towards them.

The group of cloaked figures flurried around her. "She speaks, she speaks our words…"

"The humans call us dementors. Happiness and human souls are our energy." They explained in simple thoughts.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume you do not possess vision, smell, taste or touch. Only intuitive senses?" Attuoria asked.

"That is correct," they replied in unison.

"I am the same," Attuoria projected, suddenly realising how much she related to these beings that humans thought were the most vile of them all. "I, as a Nightmare Demon, sense and feed off of fear from humans."

"We sense human fear, too. You are one with our kind. What are you doing down in the mortal realm?"

Still in complete darkness, Attuoria told them of the deal she had made with Voldemort.

"If he cannot teach you the ways of humans, we can." The dementors offered.

"You can? How is that possible?"

"We feed off of happy memories. We drain the energy, but the memories are still there. We can show you what these humans remember. We can even show you the souls we took."

"That is a very generous offer, and I thank you for that. But a trade goes both ways. What would you like to have from me?" Attuoria knew these creatures were greedy and selfish at heart. They would never offer their services for free.

"Your friend has already offered us unlimited human resources if we work with you. Let him know that we agree. And since you asked, we do have a proposal. We want to join the spiritual realm."

"Why is that?"

"It is difficult to feed on humans in the mortal realm. They developed a spell of light that forces us to retreat. But in the spiritual realm, there are no physical hindrances." The dementor's explanation was reasonable. In the spiritual realm, humans had no way of stopping the spirits. Nightmare demons were immortal as long as humans went to sleep. Death was alive as long as humans were still alive.

"I will bring your proposal to the spiritual realm once I return. Although the final decision is not up to me, I will try and make your case persuasive." Attuoria promised. It was a genuine promise. She felt it was unfair that the dementors had to suffer through physical hindrances in order to feed. Nightmare Demons never had such an issue.

"We are grateful to have been acquainted with you, Nightmare Demon."

"Likewise."

"So?" Voldemort asked.

Attuoria explained to him that the dementors agreed to work with them if they are given easy access to food, which meant humans.

"Dementors," he announced, "a group of my followers are currently being kept in Azkaban. I would like you to assist us in freeing these people."

"We will not assist you, but we won't stop you," said the Dementors.

Attuoria translated for the Dark Lord. Voldemort nodded, satisfied. "I will return with further instructions in the near future."

The two of them took off once again into the sky, finding their way back to Malfoy Manor.

"I believe our lessons have come to an end," Voldemort said once they safely returned. "You have learnt all the magic you need. You're free to use it as you wish. However, as per our deal, when I need your magical assistance, you must help me. The latter part of our deal about humans and fears, which I believe the dementors will cover well enough."

After Voldemort left that day, Attuoria sat in her room, absorbed in thought.

Voldemort's magic was no different from any other witch or wizard. They were the same spells as ones she had read in textbooks. The only difference was the way he used them. Voldemort was ruthless, straightforward, and relied heavily on magic. That's why he was the most powerful wizard alive. He prided himself on being a wizard.

For the next months of July and August, Attuoria spent the majority of her time at Azkaban. She never went into the prison itself, rather she stayed outside on the rocky shore. Dementors would take turns coming down to her and showing her the memories they've taken.

"They don't feed us well enough here," the dementors told her. "This is a prison filled with criminals. Half of them are insane even without our influence. There aren't many positive memories for us to feed on."

"What if I went in to see them?" Attuoria had asked. But the dementors, concerned with the physical safety of her human body, told her not to.

"Those are murderers. You look no different from the average human. They'll kill you."

So Attuoria studied each of these criminals through the happy memories the dementors took from them. She expected to see scenes similar to nightmares. After all, they were criminals, murderers. Their sense of happiness was sure to be different from most.

But all of these memories seemed like they came from average people, with average human lives.

There was a memory, a childhood memory, taken from a man. It happened in the countryside, at a small village with dirt paths lined with grass and flowers. A young boy walked alone as other kids zoomed past him on bikes, laughing and pointing at him. He kept his head low, ignoring the hands that swatted at his messy brown hair. It seemed like a pretty negative memory until a young girl appeared next to the boy. She, in a dainty orange dress, skipped up to him and grabbed onto his arm gently. She flashed him a sweet smile as they walked. People stopped laughing and pointing. The kids on the bikes quieted down and quickly rode their way down the path, leaving the young boy and girl alone.

That moment was a happy memory for someone. Attuoria couldn't understand. Half of it was negative.

She closed her eyes, trying to find something that might help her understand.

It was a bit of a stretch, but she thought of her first true encounter with Harry. When he stood up for her against Draco at the robe shop. That was the first sign of their camaraderie, which wasn't even a friendship at the time. It was only during the rest of the summer that they grew closer as friends.

Maybe for this boy, that was his first friend. The first sign of someone who cared about him.

There was another memory. A very plain, simple memory. It was of a woman sitting in a room full of children, entertaining them with harmless little charms and conjuring up all kinds of small animals and objects. The raven-haired woman looked so kind and content, Attuoria couldn't believe she was a criminal locked up in Azkaban.

That memory reminded her of Christmas, when she sat in the common room back at Hogwarts. She closed her eyes again, trying to recall the warmth from the fireplace, the chattering laughter of Fred and George, and Harry's frustrated cries as Percy gave him bad advice on wizard chess. She tried to remember how happy she was back then. Her first experience of true and wholesome bliss.

But she was gone from the mortal realm for too long. The emotions were gone. The only thing left was a shell of her memory.

She sighed. She was back to square one. Completely void of emotions and humanity.

***

It was late in August when the Hogwarts letter came. It contained a list of school supplies for fifth year students. Although Attuoria skipped three years of Hogwarts studies, she was sure to do just fine after all that reading and her lessons with Voldemort.

The Malfoys offered to bring her to Diagon Alley and buy the items for her, since she didn't have any money. She thanked them repeatedly for their kindness. While Narcissa was happy to help and treated Attuoria like a daughter, Lucius Malfoy didn't seem too happy that this girl was starting to become a part of their family. Neither did Draco, who stood by her side as they entered Diagon Alley. He had refused to look at her their entire journey here.

"Congrats on being appointed prefect." Attuoria said, trying to break the awkward tension between them. They were in Flourish and Blotts waiting for Mr Malfoy, who was at the counter. As an influential wizard in the Ministry of Magic, the manager had the books he needed already prepared beforehand.

"Thanks." Draco replied dryly, still not sparing her a single glance.

Attuoria stared at him blankly. Two months ago when she first arrived, Draco was still decently friendly, if not a little bit hostile. Now he's giving her the cold shoulder.

"What's with the attitude?" Attuoria asked. She didn't think she did anything to offend him.

"Nothing."

Attuoria wasn't stupid. She knew it wasn't nothing.

"Why won't you look at me?"

"You know why."

"Look at me."

"No."

"Okay." She turned away from him. If he wasn't going to cooperate, she wasn't going to waste her time.

"Malfoy really isn't worth your time." Attuoria's own human voice rang out in her mind. She frowned slightly at the memory. She remembered, years ago, she told Malfoy that he wasn't worth her time and energy after he tried to insult her during flying lessons. But she couldn't remember what emotion that memory was associated with.

"She's always out doing more important business for the dark lord…" Draco's voice sounded in her head. Although muffly, she could hear the words. Attuoria felt his gaze on the side of her head, so she turned around.

He stared right at her, gaze unmoving.

"I would be lying if I said I didn't hate her. I do. I hate how she just strolled in here and took her place amongst the Dark Lord's ranks. My parents worked so hard for years, and what has she done? Nothing. Yet the Dark Lord entrusts her with such important tasks.

My father expects things of me. He expects me to be like him. I can't let him down, not with the Dark Lord hovering over our family. My father, he - he barely even looks at me these days. My own father! It's her fault, I know it is. She's the Dark Lord's right hand man now, isn't she? Doing all that special work, taking lessons from the Dark Lord himself - And here I am, ignored, useless, invisible. Yet again, I was foolish to think that she would have cared about me..."

Attuoria blinked, realising how long she had been staring into his eyes.

What did he think again? "I was foolish to think that she would have cared about me…"

"I didn't know you… felt that way," she responded truthfully. There were layers upon layers of emotions hidden within Draco's mind right now, and she couldn't catch a single one.

"Clearly." He muttered under his breath.

Mr Malfoy returned with a worker behind him holding two large parcels. "Take them," he demanded carelessly before striding out of the shop, leaving the two of them to grab the packages and rush out after him.

They were heading out of Diagon Alley when Attuoria spotted a flash of frizzy, bright red hair standing near the Quidditch shop. It reminded her of Mrs Weasley. But before she could take a second look, the Malfoys rushed her away.

For the next few days before school started, Attuoria stopped going to the dementors. Instead, she stayed at the mansion with Draco. They spent most of their time in the study, where Attuoria taught him fifth year spells. It's not that she cared about his feelings, because she most definitely didn't, but she felt it was necessary considering the burden she had been on the Malfoy family. They offered her a place to stay, they bought all her school supplies for her, Narcissa even gave her clothes. Her own clothes. Attuoria knew she should at least do something for the household, and if she can't do anything for Lucius, she might as well be nicer to Draco.

"You're a pretty good wizard." Attuoria commented, noticing that he learned new spells faster than she had expected.

"I know." Draco replied. Attuoria had just taught him the disillusionment charm, so he was now invisible. But Attuoria could still see a faint green glow around his body. She now knew that it was called an aura, and all humans had one.

She watched as he slowly crept around the room until his glowing figure stood right behind her. Before he could attempt anything funny, she turned around to face the invisible Draco.

Only he was literally a few inches away from her, so close that she could see the green aura pulsing slowly in front of her face.

"Move." Attuoria demanded quietly.

"How did you know I was here?" asked Draco, his voice sounding right next to her ear.

"I can see your aura."

"My aura?" said Draco, taking one step back and glancing at his arm. He obviously couldn't see a thing. "That sounds stupid."

"That because you're stupid."

"I didn't know Nightmare Demons had a sense of humour."

"I wasn't joking."

As days passed, Attuoria taught him more spells. With the exception of Draco launching Attuoria into a bookshelf - "You said to use any knockback spell!" he had complained when Attuoria scolded him. "I said control the power of your spells, not throw me out the window!" - the two got along well enough.

But whether they were friends? That was still bound to take time.